It is no secret that in society no matter where a person goes they will be surrounded by influences of news media and social media. There are televisions in restaurants, gyms, and homes, and on them there is a constant stream of twenty-four hour news. Often times what is being reported on television, or through news apps, is being presented primarily for an entertainment purpose. This is what George Saunders analyzes in his 2007 essay, “The Braindead Megaphone,” in which he criticizes not only the news media system, but also society as a whole, for the way news is received and accepted. He speaks to the fact that news media has an expectation that society doesn’t reflect, or have critism, for what is reported to them. Society accepts what they hear, because it is coming form a reliable source. He says, “Does stupid, near-omnipresent media …show more content…
Saunders argues that media has the ability to change what people are talking about and alter their opinions, by being constantly there. In Cyberbully this is demonstrated first hand when Taylor’s best friend, just wanting to fit in herself, begins to distance herself from Taylor and eventually tells her that they can no longer be friends because of the rumors that are being spread at Taylor’s expense. Her friend does not want to be associated with her because she too wants to fit in and she has heard so many rumors repeated and repeated that she has begun to see them reflected in Taylor. She accuses Taylor of being overly flirtatious, an activity that before the rumors she openly encouraged. Her changing opinion of her childhood best friend, based on a group of obvious lies, shows the weight and importance placed on false truths and what others think has become more important in society then true friendship, and standing with friends through hardships, especially ones based off of
Media, the plural form of medium, describes various ways in which we communicate in society. A phone call, email, radio, computer, news on TV, etc. are all forms of media. In our society today, the media plays a significantly large role in influencing society negatively, twisting one’s perspective of the truth. In author Brooke Gladstone’s, The Influencing Machine, she discusses how media is looked at as an “influencing machine,” that’s controlling the mind of its viewers. Throughout the reading, Gladstone guides her readers through perceptions of media and how it influences them to get readers to understand the truth about media and the manipulation behind it.
The mass media has an essential role in today’s society as a channel of valuable information. Lots of people rely on media as the epicenter of information and as the yardstick on which they form their decisions and opinions (Agner, 1999). Any selection of messages in the mass media would have a profound impact on the entire society, this is according to Cultural selection theory. In the short story “Gray Noise”, Rojo uses this story to express his annoyance toward technology, but more specifically his most effective critic is on how society has overpowered valuable news with “dramaturgically crafted news” (Vettehen) and competition while desensitizing their viewers. Since competition has also stiffened up in are of mass media as the attention of readers, TV-viewers and listeners are fought for by every journalist. For this reason, every news media has turned to other strategies such as scandal-mongering and entertainment as tools of making a profit since a large audience is assured of such news even if they are not correct. Rojo’s views on critics of technology are widely shared among many people including the authors of the following studies, “Research Note: Sensationalism in Dutch Current Affairs Programmes by Paul Hendriks Vettehen
First and foremost, it is critical to discuss and unpack the ethics behind online gossiping. The way Klosterman describes online gossiping is by using the word villainy. However, villainy is typically defined as cruel or wicked behavior. In his essay, Klosterman discusses what makes a villain in regards to the online world. Specifically, Klosterman states, “The reason Perez Hilton became a villain was because the intersection of those two qualities: It wasn’t just the content, and it wasn’t just the success. It was the creeping fear that this type of content would become the only way any future person could be successful” (226). This interpretation of villainy is quite different than what most would consider. When people hear the
The Braindead Megaphone is essentially an essay about media’s affect on our culture and how technology has created a numb opinion through constant bias perception. The way we portray our own culture is much different now with the availability of technology and although that can bring us a lot of important information, we are receiving it in a way that is causing us to form our own opinions based on the way media convinces us we should think. Our perception of concepts through media is very skewed because of the careless agenda driven side of media and business. Today in the media, the information that we receive is condensed into what they want you to see verses complex and thoughtful information. Over time we see less and less real life concepts and more poorly perceived ideas and it causes us to become numb and thoughtless about these ideas because they aren’t being brought to our attention.
It is also when individuals use technology to spread rumor about another person to defame or humiliate them. Cyber harassment came about with the increase technological advancements and also the birth of social media has contributed to it as well. In the online article, Students Warn Peers about Cyber Bullying by Dawn Turner Trice. Trice writes about a 17 year old high school student by the name of Tiffany Witkowski who quit Facebook after getting cyberbullied. Tiffany tells Ms. Trice that, "They would go to my boyfriend 's page, and the next day at school, people would say, 'Oh, you and your boyfriend saw whatever movie or did whatever, I never felt physically threatened. But I felt emotionally threatened. I had just recently moved from Arizona. I had a family tragedy, and I said, 'Why is this happening to me? ' I needed emotional stability, so I just got rid of Facebook." Social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are useful for getting in touch with lost friends and family, but, it still has it negatives such as Cyber bullying, sexual predators, and so many other
398).It is also stated that news divisions reduced their costs, and raised the entertainment factor of the broadcasts put on air. (p. 400). Secondly, the media determines its sources for stories by putting the best journalists on the case and assign them to areas where news worthy stories just emanates. (p.400). Third, the media decides how to present the news by taking the most controversial or relevant events and compressing them into 30 second sound-bites. (p.402). finally, the authors also explain how the media affects the general public. The authors’ state “The effect of one news story on public opinion may be trivial but the cumulative effect of dozens of news stories may be important. This shows a direct correlation between public opinions and what the media may find “relevant”. (Edwards, Wattenberg, Lineberry, 2015, p.
In “12 O’Clock News,” Elizabeth Bishop accentuates the difficulty involved in perceiving the “truth.” She utilizes a technique of constructing an exotic world out of objects that can be found in a newsroom. By defamiliarizing a newsroom, she questions our trust in what we perceive. Is it truly a journey to another world or just another perspective on something we are already familiar with? The intent of this transformation is to create a substitute for reality, analogous to the substitute reality which the media presents to us each day as its product, the “news.” The news media are capable of creating a world beyond what we see everyday, presenting us with what appears to be the truth about cultures we will never encounter firsthand. Bishop’s manipulation of a newsroom parallels the way the media distorts our perception of the world, and by doing so questions our ability to find our way out of this fog which is “reality.”
It is not uncommon to hear people complaining about what they hear on the news. Everyone knows it and the media themselves knows it as well. Some of the most renowned journalists have even covered the the media’s issues in detail. Biased news outlets have flooded everyday news. We find that journalism’s greatest problems lie in the media’s inability for unbiased reporting, the tendency to use the ignorance of their audience to create a story, and their struggles to maintain relevance.
Introduction The news is fascinating to me because, in my opinion, it is an integral yet under-appreciated part of daily life. Due to technological advances, it is now possible for people around the world to access information on the world’s current affairs at almost any time and place. We constantly take in this information whilst giving little to no thought about the process behind it. Some scholars have referred to the news as the 'language of mass communication', speech that is designed to be heard not only by a select few people, but by an unknown number of viewers.
In Kate Harding’s essay, Social Networking Sites Cannot Be Blamed for Bullying, she focuses on deflecting the accusations made against social media all while stating that a bully is a bully no matter the circumstances. In particular Harding references a report that claims Facebook was considered the common denominator in regards to a cafeteria fight. Harding repudiates the claim almost immediately in the following paragraph by stating that there are numerous other factors that could have caused the fight, despite the fight’s origin stemming from a post on a particular child’s Facebook wall. Although it is not explicitly stated, Harding is clearly displeased that social media has been made the scapegoat.
Rather than being a neutral conduit for the communication of information, the U.S. media plays an intricate role in shaping and controlling political opinions. Media is extremely powerful in the sense that without an adequate functioning media, it is virtually impossible for a sophisticated social structure like the U.S. Government to exist. Henceforth, all known sophisticated social structure, have always dependent upon the media’s ability to socialize. The U.S. government generally will exploit the media, often times manipulating the enormous power of the printed word. Ultimately empowering the U.S. government, strengthening it with the ability to determine and control the popular perception of reality. One way in which government achieves this objective, is by its ability to misuse the media’s ability to set the agenda. Contrary to popular belief, media is in fact an enormous hegemony. In fact, separate independent news organizations relatively do not exist. Rather than creating an independent structured agenda of there own, generally lesser smaller news organizations adapt to a prepared agenda, previously constructed by a higher medium. Based upon this information alone, it is quite apparent that media functions in adherence to the characteristics of a hierarchy. This simply means that media is structured in a way that it operates functioning from top to bottom. This is also identical to the hierarchical nature of the human body, in that from the commands of the brain transferred through the central nervous system, the body responds accordingly. In order for the U.S. government to control and determine the public’s popular perception of reality, the government must shape and oversee the information that the media reports to the existing populous. This particular process of democracy is known and referred to by political scientists as cognitive socialization. However, many of us, who do not adhere to the cushioning of political correctness, refer to it as the propaganda machine. Numerous political scientists consider cognitive socialization to be the most effective form of political socialization. According to theory, cognitive socialization is doctored up information, which is strategically fragmented in such a manipulative manner, that the probability of its rationalization is highly predictable. The manipulative properties of cognitive socialization are so diabolical and Machiavellian in nature, that I consider it to be the ultimate perversion of the democratic process. In all seriousness, numerous intellectuals, and gentleman held in good stature agree, that cognitive socialization is the product of an evil genius.
Abby Youngstrom Mr. Jim Berry British Literature 10 October, 2017 Cyberbullying is Added to the Dictionary Should cyberbullying be added to the dictionary? The twelfth edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary is adding over 400 new words to keep the tradition of adding new words and staying up to date with the world. Many of these words are related to the internet/social media. Cyberbullying will make a great addition to the dictionary because cyberbullying is a problem in today’s society, people should be informed on what it truly means, and the dictionary is only good if it stays up to date with people. Cyberbullying will make a great addition to the dictionary because it is a problem in today’s society.
Public opinion is often emotional rather than rational, so it is extremely easy to be incited and would possibly cause cyber bullying, which means to attack one person or a small group of persons by using offensive language. The damage caused by cyber bullying to a person is not virtual but real. An article from PR Newswire called “Cyber Hunting and Cyber Bullying” tells a st...
In movies you always see a kid getting picked on, usually at school. Not everyone knows that those are just movies that, in reality that’s never really the case, most of the time the most bullying you’ll ever see is two good friends nudging each other or, on the guys side, punching each other just for the fun of it. You walk down the hallways, and not very often you see a kid getting shoved around or getting yelled at by someone that actually means it. If you go on Twitter, Facebook, or any kind of social media website you will always see people fight or telling someone something that could really hurt them. People don’t think about how words can hurt someone, so they say stuff that they feel like saying, most of the time, it’s something that they would never say in person. Most people don’t think about what they say before they say it and how badly it can affect a person, no matter what age, gender, everyone will feel the hurt in words that you type and with one press of a button it can ruin someone. So, if you haven’t noticed yet, my paper is on how cyber bullying is worse than the actual thing.
Throughout the previous years, the effect of mass media has produced exponentially with the innovation of technology. Initially there were books, tabloids, journals, photography, movies, broadcast, TV, New Media of the Internet, and now mass media. Nowadays, each individual are most depended on the news media and gossips to preserve their lives moving within everyday accomplishments. We trust the mass media for the existing newscast and evidences concerning anything that is significant and what we must be conscious of. We rely on the media as a consultant for gossip, info, and amusement. The amount of authority varies on the obtainability of media. All of the customary mass media partake excessive impact throughout our existence. For example the 20th century port...